[Spoilers] Night elves new capital

[Varitok]

astonishing how things go quickly like this for the alliance, or elves, i bet if it was with a horde race it would 2 or 3 expansion to get a capital city again, at all, since even get a new leader is a lost cause.

meanwhile, worgens and gnomes wait.

Orgrimmar was touched up like 3 times in four expansions. Stormwind had a quarter of it destroyed for three expacs before it was fixed.

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I think a new capital build in a druidic could signale a great change. Night Elven society post Sundering was build on a balance between worship of Elune and druidism. Now it seems Night Elves have a major crisis of faith in Elune, so we shouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even a temple there to their goddess. Besides being a powerful statement for lore reasons, Elune had a tempering nature, favoring balance between light and dark, but also once having tried to tame Lo'gosh. An unshakled druidism might be interesting to behold, especially if we see Botani ally with them.

On a side note: With the Night Elves building a new capital on their holy mountain near the spirits of the Ancients they worship, there is an interesting similarity to the Zandalari who built their capital next to the Loa.

So I guess you can say, Night Elves are....going back to their roots

[Powerogue]

Wouldnt be so fast with assumptions if i were you. That same author who claims to be a night elf player herself also said in an interview that she does not think that killing Sylvanas is a good idea, called certain group of people “haters” of said undead hoe and said that plot might leave them unsatisfied. Also main theme of Shadowlands is “forgiveness”. So no, she is just another one of the same stock as others.

Unless that "forgiveness" is 100 10,000 years trapped in vampire BDSM hell with Kael'thas, with fanart, I won't accept this.

[Illusions]

Arcane doesn't pervert nature intrinsically. it's a tool/force, it can be used to pervert nature if the users are twisted or don't care about it - and how much it is "perverted" or rather what counts as perversion is different per person or per group. A druid would have much higher standards of what is acceptable, than say a normal human or a Highborne mage.

Arcane exists naturally, usage of it can be considered abuse since mages don't ask like Druids do. You can see how in Suramar nature has twisted flora and fauna, how previous Arcan'dor twisted denizens and so on. Similarly in Eldre'thalas, Arcane exposure has turned Ancients aggressive and hostile.

If the elves are masters of the arcane, and the nature elementals they use whether as friends or slaves, then they can bend them to do things good for nature or perceived harmful.

A druid would consider forcefully bending a tree to form a home as perversion, but asking the tree and it accepting or being willing to do so? A completely different scenario! So the how matters.

Druids do not forcefully bend anything, all they do is in communion with Nature, they ask and receive. Only Nightmarish druids force Nature to bend to their will. Nightborne botanists are not Druids and twist Nature to their will with Arcane, for example. That is not the way of Night Elves, so they wouldn't use arcane to do anything with nature.

A druid would prefer not to use the wood of trees to fashion homes, but if a base or garrison camp with strong defences is needed urgently in a campaign against those that will seek to destroy nature, he will ask of the trees to give of themselves if no other rapid means is available. Such as during the long Vigil when arcane magic was banned and these things didn't have mages or the mages or ancients weren't allowed to use the arcane to magic up marble and stone defences, it would have fallen to the druids who'd prefer to ask the wisps and trees to fashion something without using a hatchet to butcher.

However in the presences of arcane sources of magic, and mages to wield it, or ancient's too because it's no longer banned, I would feel that they'd definitely prefer them to magic up marble, shells and pearls and other things that's not living trees, to form homes, and they'll infuse nature with growing vines, grass, flowers alongside and amongst it, rather rather than use wood. This is how an elf would build a city and it's just one of many positive uses of the arcane.

No, that is how your headcanon uses night elves, who in your headcanon use Arcane excessively to go about their way. Night Elves do not use Arcane to this extent, whooshing up cities of marble with the use of Arcane is also absurd for anyone, I'm sure. Wisps are spirits of Nature and willingly help Night Elves to construct buildings out of trees that also - willingly - help Night Elves. Shaping a tree out of a forest is not that big of a deal as it is to twist Arcane to your will that'd do more harm than good to surrounding nature.

Arcane magic can be used positively and powerfully against enemies, and provide a lot of great and good things, essential and worthwhile, like it did in the pre-sundering era.

A common mistake people assume is that night elves thought the pre-sundering era was a huge mistake.. this is not what I've found, it's their hubris, addiction and the reckless actions of the Highborne (allowing it) that they greatly regret, but they don't regret the arcane at all, that's silly, it's what made them, lifted them out of darkness and provided many a good things for them.

A common mistake is also that people believe just because they can roll Night Elf Mages, the general populace loves the Arcane now. In fact, they likely still find Arcane abhorrent, or overusage of it like Tyrande did in Suramar. Arcane provided them with much good and similarly much bad - it is corrupting and addictive. Drugs can make you feel good for a time too, and then there are the crashing lows.

[Aresk]

On a side note: With the Night Elves building a new capital on their holy mountain near the spirits of the Ancients they worship, there is an interesting similarity to the Zandalari who built their capital next to the Loa.

That's a nice observation! Considering the night elves and Zandalari have a common ancestry and have a lot of other similarities still in their societies, this doesn't surprise me too much, but I do like drawing more parallels between the related races.

[Hellspawn]

I think a new capital build in a druidic could signale a great change. Night Elven society post Sundering was build on a balance between worship of Elune and druidism. Now it seems Night Elves have a major crisis of faith in Elune, so we shouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even a temple there to their goddess. Besides being a powerful statement for lore reasons, Elune had a tempering nature, favoring balance between light and dark, but also once having tried to tame Lo'gosh. An unshakled druidism might be interesting to behold, especially if we see Botani ally with them.

On a side note: With the Night Elves building a new capital on their holy mountain near the spirits of the Ancients they worship, there is an interesting similarity to the Zandalari who built their capital next to the Loa.

I agree with your side note, it mirrors a bit the Zandalari in that sence.
The replacement of Elune with more druidism I doubt, thats a direction we had (by accident) the last 15 years. Legion was the first xpack we had some interaction with Elune and BFA continued with the night warrior and the question if Elune abandoned the night elf that Tyrande got. This whole journey seems to be more about who is Elune and why do the night elf actually worship her. Its also pretty obvious that the main Druid Malfurion was more of an background character in BFA after the prepatch while Tyrande and Shandris were the night elf maincast (both more Elune oriented). But in the end, it would be foolish to think that druids does not play a big role and Botani would make an interesting ally... but at the same time they also make a good nature enemy so we will see (hopefully).
I think its always important to see the themes they follow, of course that stuff can always suddenly change I think these things are still the best leads.

Arcane exists naturally, usage of it can be considered abuse since mages don't ask like Druids do. You can see how in Suramar nature has twisted flora and fauna, how previous Arcan'dor twisted denizens and so on. Similarly in Eldre'thalas, Arcane exposure has turned Ancients aggressive and hostile.

The Shen'dralar brought in a friendly Ancient
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Arcosin

You can't ask Arcane Magic if it wants to be used, its just there and does not have its own will. Highborne have a tendency to change everything around them to how they want it to be while night elf try to live in harmony with their surrounding.

How night elfs build their city, especially the marble parts is a open question, this time they actually could use arcane magic to do it but it would be more likely that blizzard does not answer the question, just make it look cool and reuse some of the cool assets they build in the past.

[ravenmoon]

Arcane exists naturally, usage of it can be considered abuse since mages

it's clear druids don't consider using the arcane as abuse. They use the arcane energies in moonwells themselves, they also cast arcane spells and their balance spectrum is about balance between arcane and nature.

You could say druids only oppose abusive use, not any use, as they're about balance.

other evidence includes druids workign fine alongside mages whether human, elven, draenei or even troll

Also Malfurion a druid is the main supporter of the Highborne returning tot he Darnassians and being in charge with all arcane development, teaching without restrictions. His priority is just that the Highborne don't harm nature in their practices

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No, that is how your headcanon uses night elves, who in your headcanon use Arcane excessively to go about their way. Night Elves do not use Arcane to this extent, whooshing up cities of marble with the use of Arcane is also absurd for anyone, I'm sure. Wisps are spirits of Nature and willingly help Night Elves to construct buildings out of trees that also - willingly - help Night Elves. Shaping a tree out of a forest is not that big of a deal as it is to twist Arcane to your will that'd do more harm than good to surrounding nature.

It's the best a few of us can come up with based on what we observe. I woudln't deny your accusation, but do you have any reason not to believe this is the case? There are enough signs to indicate that this is the case, based on things druids have said, how they've behaved, when you understand what their work is about.

I've been one of the biggest night elven druid fans, my love for night elven arcane came from the balance druid and the night elven races affinity to the arcane in conjunction with nature. So I've looked closely at what they've written.

It's not that I think I'm not wrong, but it seems to fit what I've observed.

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I think a new capital build in a druidic could signale a great change. Night Elven society post Sundering was build on a balance between worship of Elune and druidism. Now it seems Night Elves have a major crisis of faith in Elune, so we shouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even a temple there to their goddess. Besides being a powerful statement for lore reasons, Elune had a tempering nature, favoring balance between light and dark, but also once having tried to tame Lo'gosh. An unshakled druidism might be interesting to behold, especially if we see Botani ally with them.

On a side note: With the Night Elves building a new capital on their holy mountain near the spirits of the Ancients they worship, there is an interesting similarity to the Zandalari who built their capital next to the Loa.

If they do make that move it would signal alot. and show that blizzard want the Darnassian faction focused there.

It won't remove or eliminate Highborne night elves, other arcane wielding ones, so how they deal with them would also be important because they could separate them and have them build their own stuff, or work with void/high elves and even nightborne. Depends.

What I do know is that that part of the night elves is very valuable, it's important that you see night elf civilization that's not forest tree based, because you get a lot of that in forest for the and it gets very samey, not to mention it makes the group look very small and un-necessarily niche, when it was initially far bigger and broader. It also gains a feeling of sameness, and if yo'ure a night elf fna like me, who loves their forest theme, it gets boring if there is nothing else.

So my ideal for them is tons of forests, and then 1 amazing night elf city, grand and beautiful, since their lands are so vast, they could have another city somewhere lese, and 1 or 2 towns of that beautiful marble architecture. But the majority is forest, and Val'sharah Lorathil and Lor'danel type small remote forest villages or one off homes.

[Talrath]

K some guys here are posting an entire book here. Please keep it short and be direct or else most of the readers will just skip your post. Elaborate when they ask and even then keep it short.

[perkocet]

K some guys here are posting an entire book here. Please keep it short and be direct or else most of the readers will just skip your post. Elaborate when they ask and even then keep it short.

ah yes, the lore forum, where everyone notoriously *checks notes* ...hates to read. checks out makes sense.

[Illusions]

The Shen'dralar brought in a friendly Ancient
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Arcosin

Yes, and as I wrote above, there's very little about the friendly Ancient that it rather feels like a NPC to showcase that 'hey tower of Estulan is place for mages' rather than any other lore reason. It is the only known friendly Ancient that has iirc 0 use, literally every other Ancient of the Arcane is hostile.

it's clear druids don't consider using the arcane as abuse. They use the arcane energies in moonwells themselves, they also cast arcane spells and their balance spectrum is about balance between arcane and nature.

You could say druids only oppose abusive use, not any use, as they're about balance.

other evidence includes druids workign fine alongside mages whether human, elven, draenei or even troll

Druids using Arcane is likely a game limitation, since it's all lunar themed ((one of the worst things to come from... Cataclysm? bring back offensive nature stuff rather than cosmic wankery)). What Druids do is different from what Mages do. I've been talking about the abusive use anyway, which is what Highborne do and what constructing whole cities or w/e the rest suggested has been.

Druids work fine alongside other mages because like, obviously they would against a greater foe, but that does not mean they have to like what they see.

Also Malfurion a druid is the main supporter of the Highborne returning tot he Darnassians and being in charge with all arcane development, teaching without restrictions. His priority is just that the Highborne don't harm nature in their practices

Malfurion is not just any druid and here I would ask - Arcane corruption from overuse is harming nature, so obviously abuse of Arcane is still condemned and/or disliked.

It's the best a few of us can come up with based on what we observe. I woudln't deny your accusation, but do you have any reason not to believe this is the case? There are enough signs to indicate that this is the case, based on things druids have said, how they've behaved, when you understand what their work is about.

I've been one of the biggest night elven druid fans, my love for night elven arcane came from the balance druid and the night elven races affinity to the arcane in conjunction with nature. So I've looked closely at what they've written.

It's not that I think I'm not wrong, but it seems to fit what I've observed.

Your love for night elven arcane came from the rule of cool that Blizzard employs, hamfisting a nonsense overhaul of the offensive Druid spellworks into the Balance tree. It's also easy to see narratives that fit your observation when you ignore the opposing viewpoints. Druids shaped Val'sharah to be a close reflection of the Dream, and Dreamgrove/Lorlathil and the other towns in the zone are all similar in construction to what Darnassus was - so surely such ways of making cities/towns/villages is not condemned.

In general, you'd think the amount of Arcane needed to construct a city is more damaging to the surroundings than working with Nature to create a home. One literally asks and works with the Nature, the other way does not care for its surroundings, only for its own ideals - and it led to horribilities like Suramar.

If they do make that move it would signal alot. and show that blizzard want the Darnassian faction focused there.

It won't remove or eliminate Highborne night elves, other arcane wielding ones, so how they deal with them would also be important because they could separate them and have them build their own stuff, or work with void/high elves and even nightborne. Depends.

Darnassian faction ((which would be...Druids, Sentinels, Priestesses?)) should be the faction focused anyway. Highborne are subplot and a subdivision, they shouldn't ever be the focus. If they rebuilt Eldre'thalas while the rest of the faction remained in Hyjal to create a new city in the modern way (in tune with Nature), then I'm all for it. But Highborne shouldn't ever be the focus in Hyjal.

What I do know is that that part of the night elves is very valuable, it's important that you see night elf civilization that's not forest tree based, because you get a lot of that in forest for the and it gets very samey, not to mention it makes the group look very small and un-necessarily niche, when it was initially far bigger and broader. It also gains a feeling of sameness, and if yo'ure a night elf fna like me, who loves their forest theme, it gets boring if there is nothing else.

I already said I don't see it as that, stop reducing this to a cyclic argument. I also disagree, we've seen very little of the actual living-in-the-forests vibe, the most we got is Darnassus and even that was limited by game mechanics. If they could, for example, create a new city in Hyjal, with buildings sprawling across the roots and trunk of Nordrassil, I think that would instead be very cool, unique, and definitely not same-y. Restore some of the nearby marbled constructs for the Highborne and you've a new capitol set.

So my ideal for them is tons of forests, and then 1 amazing night elf city, grand and beautiful, since their lands are so vast, they could have another city somewhere lese, and 1 or 2 towns of that beautiful marble architecture. But the majority is forest, and Val'sharah Lorathil and Lor'danel type small remote forest villages or one off homes.

My ideal is Hyjal becoming the capitol for Night Elves, as written above. Highborne can restore Eldre'thalas. However, your ideal is very idealistic - let's be honest, we're never going to get anything close to this treatment. Also, you continue saying marbled architecture is beautiful, but remember it's just your opinion. I find it tiring and it's instead more interesting when it's surrounded by nature (eg Temples in Val'sharah and Darnassus).

But if we're allowed to dream, I'd rather have it as tons of forests, Hyjal the capitol with sprawling buildings across roots and up the tree trunk (imagine HoMM5 Sylvan city, or the fan-art of Teldrassil: you can see buildings on the sides of the tree and..well, everywhere). I don't particularly care for Highborne myself, but restored Eldre'thalas could be cool. I don't think overall Night Elves would have majority of their towns as marble, so it would likely just be one larger city like that, with smaller cities more in themes like Lorlathil. I'd love to see more villages (and larger villages!) like that. Astranaar is so sad with its four buildings for its size.

K some guys here are posting an entire book here. Please keep it short and be direct or else most of the readers will just skip your post. Elaborate when they ask and even then keep it short.

It's worse when they're filled with mistakes, making the already gargantuan posts hard to read. Then again, the MMO-Champion post editor is garbage anyway. I do agree - writing novellas in each post is tiresome even if it's a Lore thread, you should be able to get your point across concisely, or it'll just get larger every post as people continue quoting several paragraphs and responding to each.

[Moonrage]

Argh. We are moving into the realm of brainwashing angels, wicked gargoyles, Scourge 2.0 and souls gardeners, for all of which souls are nothing but currency... Only to be (further) lectured about forgiveness Damn, can't wait to play more Hello Kitty.

Preach, afterlife in WoW is like a Heavenly/Hellish gulag.

[alt-ithist]

it was actually gazlowe and his cartel who built orgrimmar at the request of thrall who was human educated and understood the importance of good defenses.

the racial leader of the night elves is a druid I suppose he would ask his duidas to build a capital according to their own concepts of how that city should be, but I repeat I think malfurion would allow the shendrelar to build their own district with imperial style

Reguardless, if the night elves continue to be stuck in the past in an Azeroth that is quickly advancing to the space age then it would be better if they just die off or remove themselves from the alliance and find a way to hide from the world because they are nothing more then a liability at this point. Maybe they can learn from the nightborne how to lock themselves away.

One more thing I’d like to point out. It’s often said by some that night elves would never return to their arcane roots as if they had an aversion to arcane magic. That’s complete bullshit. Night elves were afraid that the usage of arcane would bring the legion back to their doorstep. Well, that ship has sailed. Not only did the legion come and got their ass kicked a few times. We even went to their home base and kicked their ass there. There’s no longer a fear that using arcane would bring the legions wrath. If anything it would actually make sense for them to start learning magic again from their Highborne cousins as well their Draenei/high elven/even human allies.

[The Butt Witch]

If the area isn't going to be like a REAL capital, with a leveling area around it, then I really don't care. I don't want another Gnomerengan which THEORETICALLY was taken back by the gnomes back in... Cata(?) but the area is still a dungeon and not the Gnome capital.

[Hellspawn]

If the area isn't going to be like a REAL capital, with a leveling area around it, then I really don't care. I don't want another Gnomerengan which THEORETICALLY was taken back by the gnomes back in... Cata(?) but the area is still a dungeon and not the Gnome capital.

If they choose Hyjal they would not create its own phase for it anyways.
The only way I can see it having a leveling Zone around it would be with a (at least partial) world revamp.

One other possibility would be to add it with the heritage quest scenario. Maybe we need to get the blessing of Elune and the wild gods shrines there and the quest ends around Nordrassil. Like, the Horde got the founding of Orgrimmar in warcraft 3 and the night elf get the founding of new Elune'dris on Hyjal.
For the Forsaken I imagine something similar. I think for both of them this would be the most interesting way to establish their new homes. Its a story very specific to their races and you can make it a lot less generic without building it for a hero that can be any race.

[pacotaco]

What is exactly the Problem? It phases in on max level and done, also you get a NPC somewhere in Hyjal to jump to the old version. Maybe it also just phases in on the next expansion start (10.0)
Your proposal would need them to figure out how to get the BC Zones into the actual world and then on top of that moving the night elfs to some isle that was the starter experience of the Draenei for some reason.

If the put a Chronomancer that phase you like in other zones, as you say, it's even much worse.

For starters:
- How portals work?
- If you're phased in the past and you try to take a portal to the city, does it work?
- Does it takes you the time you chose with the chronomancer?
- Does it ignore the choice and teleports you to the past? Or does it to the present?
- How do you show it to the player in advance without ambiguity?

- They'll also need to change EVERY single quest that leads to the zone and explain that you MUST to phase at the NPC.

If you also want to make the capital usable in the gameplay natural progression, you have to adjust the sorroundings:
- Do you phase the enterity of the zone, of just part of it? You also need to scale and redesign the zone to adjust to the level range asociated with capitals (0-20 now, 0-10 in SL if I'm not wrong).
- You have to keep a bit of progresion in threats, so they need new story and enemies. If you pick other starting zones you can use some tweaks, but I doubt it'd work (specially story wise) with high level end-of-the-world problems.
- The zones around the capital will still be high-level zones, so the player can't progress naturally to the next zone naturally like they do now ("just walk to the adjacent zone and keep questing")

And that is just at the top of my mind. Surelly there are more design problems.

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If the area isn't going to be like a REAL capital, with a leveling area around it, then I really don't care. I don't want another Gnomerengan which THEORETICALLY was taken back by the gnomes back in... Cata(?) but the area is still a dungeon and not the Gnome capital.

That's exacttly the point. There's no point on making a new city for players to not use it.

The most probable thing is that Blizzard is aiming to make Silvermoon and The Exodar the new capital cities of each continent. They were mechanically ghost towns, because with Undercity and Teldrassil next to them there was no point for players to go there. So they removed the other cities and opened the way to make the change.

[Hellspawn]

If the put a Chronomancer that phase you like in other zones, as you say, it's even much worse.

For starters:
- How portals work?
- If you're phased in the past and you try to take a portal to the city, does it work?
- Does it takes you the time you chose with the chronomancer?
- Does it ignore the choice and teleports you to the past? Or does it to the present?
- How do you show it to the player in advance without ambiguity?

- They'll also need to change EVERY single quest that leads to the zone and explain that you MUST to phase at the NPC.

If you also want to make the capital usable in the gameplay natural progression, you have to adjust the sorroundings:
- Do you phase the enterity of the zone, of just part of it? You also need to scale and redesign the zone to adjust to the level range asociated with capitals (0-20 now, 0-10 in SL if I'm not wrong).
- You have to keep a bit of progresion in threats, so they need new story and enemies. If you pick other starting zones you can use some tweaks, but I doubt it'd work (specially story wise) with high level end-of-the-world problems.
- The zones around the capital will still be high-level zones, so the player can't progress naturally to the next zone naturally like they do now ("just walk to the adjacent zone and keep questing")

And that is just at the top of my mind. Surelly there are more design problems.

These problems are already solved with Teldrassil and Undercity.
0-10 you will be either in the new starting Zone or in the Cata phase, so no problem at all.
The new capital cities will not have any leveling asociated to them unless they make a full leveling revamp to the old world, and then its no problem at all since the entirety of catalcysm would be phased anyways (currently its already partial for 3 zones)

They don't need to change any quest since combining the new capital with a storyline from 10 years ago is entirely pointless.

The new city will be phased if you choose to level in cataclysm otherwise it will be just there.
And all the teleporting question are already answered with how it works for Undercity and Teldrassil.
All your problems already have answers in the current game or are non problems.
You would need to update the entire zone (just like Darkshore and Arathi) which you want to do anyways if you plan to do the heritage quest there to begin with. Otherwise they just leave out the quest NPCs from the new Zones und remove all the fire elements and so on.
In the best case they also update all the wild god shrines with druid NPCs and the wild gods themselves aswell as new buildings or existing ones from Val'shara

That's exacttly the point. There's no point on making a new city for players to not use it.

The most probable thing is that Blizzard is aiming to make Silvermoon and The Exodar the new capital cities of each continent. They were mechanically ghost towns, because with Undercity and Teldrassil next to them there was no point for players to go there. So they removed the other cities and opened the way to make the change.

Again, that will not happen unless they make a big Azeroth revamp. With Shadowlands they just changed leveling around so you don jump between timelines while leveling. Just Adding the Forsaken and Nightelf city to the Cataclysm leveling would go in the entirely wrong direction. They would never do starting Zones for a leveling area they don't even offer to new players. And people that actually want to play the cataclysm leveling experience want to start on Teldrassil anyways.

[pacotaco]

These problems are already solved with Teldrassil and Undercity.

No they're not. Those cities are removed space, not replaced with anything else.

0-10 you will be either in the new starting Zone or in the Cata phase, so no problem at all.
The new capital cities will not have any leveling asociated to them unless they make a full leveling revamp to the old world, and then its no problem at all since the entirety of catalcysm would be phased anyways (currently its already partial for 3 zones)

They don't need to change any quest since combining the new capital with a storyline from 10 years ago is entirely pointless.

The new city will be phased if you choose to level in cataclysm otherwise it will be just there.

So, again, the city has no real purpose? What's the point of spending all that work on a new city just to not add content to it? Looks like adding a city for the sake of it regardless of everything.

And all the teleporting question are already answered with how it works for Undercity and Teldrassil.

No it's not. The portals to those cities are now pointing outside the city, and are restricted to each faction. They also removed the ships to the cities and replaced them with portals.

What happens to the portals to Hyjal in Orgrimmar? You move them to the doors of the new Alliance city? You remove it? If you remove it, how do you plan that players no phased to the past move to that zone and phase?

All your problems already have answers in the current game or are non problems.

Seems to me that you think that they're the same but they aren't and you don't realise the technical and design implications of those problems.

You would need to update the entire zone (just like Darkshore and Arathi) which you want to do anyways if you plan to do the heritage quest there to begin with. Otherwise they just leave out the quest NPCs from the new Zones und remove all the fire elements and so on.
In the best case they also update all the wild god shrines with druid NPCs and the wild gods themselves aswell as new buildings or existing ones from Val'shara

I'm getting tired of this. You just said they don't need to create new content just 4 peragraphs before this one, in this very same post.
Both have problems:
- If you make content you have to phase all of the zone (capital cities are meant to be low level content)
- If you don't make content you have a ghost town almost noone will visit, like you had with the previous one.

Again, that will not happen unless they make a big Azeroth revamp.

Not necesarilly at all. If something, they just reinforced the idea they are willing to revamp some zones at a time if they can make new content for them (they even said it on several interviews). We already have several examples: Arathi, Dark Shore, Uldum and Vale of the Eternal Blossoms. I agree that they're minor revamps, but they may be the proof of concept for something bigger in the future.

With Shadowlands they just changed leveling around so you don jump between timelines while leveling. Just Adding the Forsaken and Nightelf city to the Cataclysm leveling would go in the entirely wrong direction. They would never do starting Zones for a leveling area they don't even offer to new players. And people that actually want to play the cataclysm leveling experience want to start on Teldrassil anyways.

I agree. But I think they changed the leveling with 2 things in mind:
- Avoid the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey that is the timeline now gamewise. With the change you play an entire expansion which has it's own entire timeline and doesn't go back and forth.
- It frees them to do "vertical content" (content that ranges from 1 to max level) without worrying too much about timeline continuity with adjacent zones.

[Hellspawn]

Again, I'm just saying your problems are not complicated to solve and they already did solve similar problems.

What happens to the portals to Hyjal in Orgrimmar? You move them to the doors of the new Alliance city? You remove it? If you remove it, how do you plan that players no phased to the past move to that zone and phase?

Ogrimmar Hyjal portal: Either remove it when you not level in cata zones or have the the phasing NPC at a save spot at the border of Hyjal and port them there.

I'm getting tired of this. You just said they don't need to create new content just 4 peragraphs before this one, in this very same post.
Both have problems:
- If you make content you have to phase all of the zone (capital cities are meant to be low level content)
- If you don't make content you have a ghost town almost noone will visit, like you had with the previous one.

With no content I'm just saying, that there may be no gameplay in the Zone. It would be a dead city, maybe it would not even have any traders and it would just be the result of the heritage quest for night elfs.
For me that seems the most likely Scenario unless they revamp more areas on Kalimdor at the same time with endgame content.
There is no strong technical or storywise argument against going to Hyjal and with the current information that we got its the most likely place for it.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

That's just silly, whatever it ends up being, it has every right to be Suramar or look like Suramar.

Off course it is mainly horde fans that disagree, but I find it quite incredulous that fans would claim that night elves cant have a night elf city or similar style because it's on the horde, when the city in question is night elven racial city where most of the night elven playable group originate from.

Talk about stealing your identity...its like telling the high elves you can have any city you want, you just cant have Silvermoon or anything close to it, never mind that's where you came from and your race built it too.

Pff

And I keep being wary of any self proclaimed True Night Elf Fans that completely disregard and dismiss what the Night Elves are socioculturally and aesthetically in favor of what they just want them to be.

The argument "Suramar was their city first" when it was 10.000 years ago, and evolved changed under Nightborne ownership, will never be a good argument.

This whole tedious talk is about your utter refusal to accept that the Night Elves are not the same people culturally than they were 10k years ago, and it's downright absurd we have to keep proving this to you and your ilk at this point. "It has ever right to look like Suramar" or be that city itself, that's the sort of statement of someone that completely disregard the cultural context of a people in favor of what you find more pleasing.

Also the whole implication that disagreement on this means one must favor the Horde is so basic. It's like you are unable to accept that someone that also likes Night Elves would disagree with you. Then again, your actual view on what Night Elves actually are is so warped I'm not surpised.

I don't think even High Elves should have a city looking like Silvermoon. Because even in a couple of decades they have already diverged culturally, it shouldn't have the same sensibilities than Silvermoon as High Elves on the alliance have inextricably being affected by their assimilation into humanity, or their own isolation. Why would they rebuild their cities as a copy of Silvermoon? The only reason would be a purposeful traditionalist reclaiming.

But again, Night Elves have spent the last freaking Ten Thousand Years moving away from their Imperial Past, living in harmony with nature, and you presume to know better and say they would like to live on a city as ostentatious as Suramar?

Like what even is this nonsense?

[Ardenaso]

I don't think even High Elves should have a city looking like Silvermoon. Because even in a couple of decades they have already diverged culturally, it shouldn't have the same sensibilities than Silvermoon as High Elves on the alliance have inextricably being affected by their assimilation into humanity, or their own isolation. Why would they rebuild their cities as a copy of Silvermoon? The only reason would be a purposeful traditionalist reclaiming.

eh, a human city is enough with at least 2-4 token High Elf structures like Allerian Stronghold or Wintergarde Keep is enough

but then again I also kinda want Eldre'thalas to be a token Highborne + High Elf + Void Elf + Draenei hub

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

eh, a human city is enough with at least 2-4 token High Elf structures like Allerian Stronghold or Wintergarde Keep is enough

but then again I also kinda want Eldre'thalas to be a token Highborne + High Elf + Void Elf + Draenei hub

I mean yeh, but that's like part of the issue, not even High Elves would build a city just like Silvermoon. Sure it can have aspects of it like some Thalssian buildings (which TBH should be upgraded, I feel Draenei could still use recolored WoD stuff mostly, still looks beautiful) much like Darnassus indeed was partially evocative of their more imperial aesthetic with the temple of the moon.

Of course there should be influence, but neither High Elves nor Night Elves should rebuild/build copies of cities that simply do not represent their current cultural context.

TBH, I'd love Eldre'thalas as a "highborne renaissance" center, not sure how quite the Draenei would fit there but I would love to see them too? Nonetheless, I 100% agree on a reclaimed Eldre'thalas where all the alliance elves can reclaim their arcane past.

In terms of assets, I would be okay with them reusing NE structures from Legion, but looking new, and maybe with some slight texture and detail swaps to show Highborne, High Elven and Void Elven culture; like rooftoops/domes being lavender/gold, blue/silver and bronze/purple